Thoughts of a progressive Episcopalian. There's a lot more to my life than that, though.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Home Turf

I have been seeing where the links took me. I started on Saturday at Mimi's Wounded Bird and Wednesday I ended up at JaneR's Acts of Hope. Along the way I hit several blogs that were at least somewhat familiar to me.

When I looked at JaneR's bogroll, I found myself using, for the second time in this exercise, the expression "home turf." Let me explain. I am by temperament more of a lurker thatn a participant in blog conversations. I only really started looking at blogs with any consistency during the spring and summer of 2006, in the lead up to General Convention that year. I soon zeroed in on a small set of blogs that I read faithfully -- in fact, at first only two -- Father Jake Stops The World and Of Course I Could Be Wrong. At those sites I became familiar with the comments of a numbers of people who comment, or did at that time. These folks constitute the core of what I think of as "home turf."

Some of them are listed on my blogroll, but that roll is sorely out of date. I have slowly been adjusting it, but that takes a degree of concentration and discernment that exceeds what I can muster right now.

I began this blog two years ago with a post on October 23, 2006, in which I said "Yesterday I went to my home church, St. Mary's, for the first time in more than 12 weeks." Once again, it's been twelve weeks since I have been at St. Mary's. I won't be there this Sunday either. St. Mary's is truly my home church -- I first went there 50 years ago, in 1958 -- most likely my first Sunday there was November 16, 1958 -- so I am just four weeks away from my fiftieth anniversary. The reason I won't make it to St. Mary's this Sunday is that there are strong reasons for Liz and I to remain at Heart Lake for a day longer than we had planned.

Heart Lake is also home turf to me. I was conceived within 100 yards of the desk where I am writing this. I know that, because when I came out to them in the spring of 1958, my parents, for some reason, told me. This year we have been here since the beginning of July and were planning to shut down this Saturday, October 18. As it happens, though, we are having some landscaping done and it will go on through Sunday, so we have decided to stay on until Monday morning.

Finally, Morningside Gardens and our apartment is another home turf to me. I'll be back there on Monday and will be based there for the next seven to eight months. I'm eager to be home -- and at the same time sorry to leave here.

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About Me

I'm a retired math teacher with a keen interest in English Literature. I have been active at my local Episcopal church for more than 50 years. My current project is to complete a history of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Manhattanville, which will have its 200th anniversary in 2023. I'm also working on
a family history for my first and second cousins and I hope to publish on the web a version of my Masters Essay on The Dunciad.